


Wasted On The Young

by Quaggy



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Comics), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, F/M, Future Fic, Gen, Post-Chosen, comic-verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 15:17:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14718557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quaggy/pseuds/Quaggy
Summary: "If tonight was any indication, Buffy wasn’t sure whether Giles would live to see his second nineteenth birthday. It was currently taking all her will-power to keep from murdering him before his second eighteenth was even over."





	Wasted On The Young

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DHW](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DHW/gifts).



> While this is compliant to the BtVS comics (or at least as of BTVS Season 11 and issue #3 of the Giles mini-series), it really doesn't come into play that much since this is a future fic. This is for DHW for her birthday. The idea was originally hers, which I shamelessly stole.

If tonight was any indication, Buffy wasn’t sure whether Giles would live to see his second nineteenth birthday. It was currently taking all her will-power to keep from murdering him before his second eighteenth was even over. They had been to nine different pubs; Giles had gotten himself into three separate fights along with four near misses, and there had been so many drinks that she had lost count about six stops ago. 

  
Buffy sighed. She was thirty. She was too old for this shit. So was Giles, for that matter, but that didn’t seem to stop him. At least he had moved on from bellicose portion of the evening. Of course, now he was singing, which was normally a good thing. But in this case, rather than classic rock or even singing along with the inoffensive generic adult contemporary that you could barely hear over the din of conversation, he was serenading the pub with a mixture of old English drinking songs, Monty Python, and bad 90s pop. The last one was mostly to annoy her, she was certain. Well, joke was on him, because as long as he stayed away from Chumbawumba, she could tolerate anything. Not that she didn’t enjoy “Tubthumping,” but she preferred it when she wasn’t playing babysitter while others thumped the tubs.

  
They were in London, where the drinking age was 18. He still needed his fake ID in the States. Of course, Rupert Giles was actually nearing 60. And dead. All his IDs were fake. Not that it really mattered. He didn’t look like a kid. She got carded more than he did. (Well, that wasn’t actually saying much. Her Slayer healing had seemed to slow aging down to a near standstill. She got carded more than the other Scoobies combined. It was a point of annoyance for her.) 

  
Buffy had been surprised that Giles had been so keen to party. He had never been one to make much of his birthday, not even after he was de-aged, though he always happy to celebrate if it was anyone else’s, especially hers. But he had been talking about nothing but the trip for months, the pub crawl in particular. It was originally supposed to be a big Scooby trip, but, one by one, they all dropped out with some excuse. While their reasons seemed valid enough, Buffy privately thought more than a few had simply decided that they weren’t actually up for a marathon of museums in the morning followed by an epic pub crawl. 

  
“Sorry that your big night out wound up being a bit of a bust. I know you were expecting a crowd,” she had told him, fairly early in the evening, as they wandered to the next pub.

  
“That’s alright. Just me and my girl. Can’t ask for more than that,” he had said, swinging an arm around her. (Which would have been kind of sweet, except he was already sweaty and a little stinky and brewery-smelling.) Not that he meant it literally or anything. Though as far as she knew he wasn’t dating anyone. She generally tried her best to avoid knowing too much about his love life, but she did always manage to clock into his more serious relationships. So, tonight, it looked like the title was actually hers, if only by default.

  
But, as it turned out, they really hadn’t needed to bring a crowd with them. One greeted them at every stop along the way. The evening had been a nostalgic tour of all of Giles’s favorite pubs, past and present, including a brief pause in front of a Starbucks that used to be a particular favorite of his during the seventies. (He was well into an impressive tirade against globalization and capitalism by the time Buffy was able to drag him away.) And everywhere they went, there were people who wanted to congratulate him and buy him a drink. Even at this particular pub, where he hadn’t been for decades and therefore shouldn’t have known anyone, Giles had made friends with a group of Australians practically from the moment he entered the door. They had been whooping it up ever since. Frankly, she wasn’t even sure why she had been needed on this evening’s excursion, except as adult supervision.

  
Suddenly, Giles’s voice rang out from across the room, with his new friends joining in: “I GET KNOCKED DOWN! BUT I GET UP AGAIN!!!” 

  
Yeah. She was definitely going to have to kill him. 

 

* * *

 

Miraculously, Buffy managed to curtail her murderous intentions until the wee hours of the morning when she finally convinced him it was time to head back to the hotel. Not an easy feat considering Giles kept providing plenty of ammunition on the way. But it was a bit like babysitting, and if she could survive Dawn during her completely obnoxious fifteen-year-old stage, then she could survive anything. Or at least that’s what she kept telling herself as they made their way back to the posh little boutique hotel they were staying at. The entire time, Giles leaned heavily on her, occasionally patting her head and face in a drunken gesture of appreciation, which was pretty much in keeping with the mix of sweet and annoying he had been the entire night. 

  
“Where’s your key?” Buffy asked, when they finally arrived in front of his hotel room.

  
“Dunno.”

  
“Seriously, Giles,” Buffy sighed. “Maybe I should come in with you.”

  
“Oh, yeah?” Giles waggled his eyebrows at her. Buffy barely noticed as she reached into the inside pocket of his leather jacket, where she had seen him stash his key when they had left for the evening.

  
“Well, I suppose you’re safe enough on your own,” Buffy said, as she unlocked the door. Giles stumbled a bit as the door opened, Buffy not noticing until it was too late that he was resting against it. “Careful! Geez, already proving me wrong! But there’s not really any place for you to pass out other than your bed. So, I guess you can’t cause too much damage. Make sure you drink some water before you go to sleep. Do you have any aspirin with you? If not, I’m sure I have some in my bag.”

  
“Stop mothering me. I can look after myself,” Giles grumbled, as he leaned against the now open door, as if trying to get the world to stop spinning .

  
“That remains to be seen,” Buffy said, as she brushed his hair away from his face. He had been pristine when they had left, but he was a rumpled disarray now. His hair was sweated and matted down. His shirt was torn a bit from one of his fights and had a curry stain near the collar from that dodgy late-night Indian take-away. “God, you’re a mess. I think you partied a little too hearty.”

  
“It’s my birthday.”

  
“Yeah, I got that. I still I don’t get what the big deal is.” 

  
“I’m not underage anymore.”

  
“Giles, you haven’t been underage for forty years!!” 

  
“Not like that. It’s different now.”

  
“I don’t see how. Are you trying to tell me that being ‘underage’ stopped you from drinking before tonight? Because I know better.”

  
“It’s not about that,” Giles muttered, petulantly. He was getting moody, which meant she probably should drop it. But she was tired and she didn’t care. She had suffered through a long, aggravating night for his sake. She wanted to at least know why.

  
“Then what it is it, young whippersnapper? Because I’m failing to see how today is any different than yesterday.”

  
“But that’s the point!” Giles exploded. “You’re supposed to see that I’m not a kid anymore! It’s supposed to make a difference to you!! It made a difference to me! I didn’t think it would, but it did!!”

  
“It… made a difference to you? That I wasn’t underage?” 

  
“Yea— SHIT!!” Giles’s eyes grew wide. Buffy realized he hadn’t intended to say that last part out loud. Or possibly any of it at all. And definitely not such a long-held, reality-altering secret.

  
He looked utterly devastated. Part of her wanted to tell him it would be okay, reassure him that this wasn’t going to change things between them, but the other part of her wasn’t sure if anything would be same ever again. Her mind was still reeling from the idea that he was attracted to her and apparently had been for a very, very long time. They stared at each other helplessly for a long moment. 

  
“Oh, fuck it,” he said suddenly and grabbed her. His breath was foul. He tasted like booze and bad curry and cigarettes. (He must have snuck a few when her back was turned.) It almost overshadowed his considerable skill. He pulled back after… a unit of time, of some sort. It took her brain a moment or two to kick in again and it must have shown on her face, because he smirked at her. He leaned in to give her something that was a shade too desperate to be considered a quick peck.

  
“Right. I’ll see you,” he said, with that smug grin still firmly in place. And then he was gone, leaving her still gasping in shock in the hotel hallway.   
  


Buffy wet her lips and tried to get her thoughts in order, but she really only had the one: Oh Lord, she was in trouble. She suddenly realized that she still had Giles room key in her hand and started to smile. She managed to keep from laughing outright until she got back to her own room, a few doors down. She might be in trouble… but not nearly as much as he was going to be in!   
  


Buffy grinned down at Giles’s room key as she got ready for bed. First thing in the morning (which would probably be closer to noon, because she wasn’t a monster), she’d get his hungover ass out of bed and into the shower. From there, she’d play things by ear. She might play dumb. She might be teasing. It all depended on how he reacted. She was going to enjoy keeping him off-balance.

  
She wasn’t freaked out that Giles had apparently had a few impure thoughts about her back when she was younger. Giles was a good man. He’d never do anything to take advantage her and that he had kept his attraction firmly buried until now was proof of that. But she hadn’t been a child for quite some time. Granted, by the time she finally grew up, he had been trapped in his second childhood. Not to mention she had been in a serious relationship. And then he was too for a while there. (With a vampire no less! Were she and Giles a matched set, or what?) But they had both been single for a good two years and that was two years that they could have been together. She so was going to give him hell for that! 


End file.
